“Barbecue, above all, is time-consuming and finicky,” says Magnolia‘s Dave McLean as he strolls through his new Dogpatch brewery and restaurant, Smokestack. “There are a lot of details how exactly the smoke blows through the smokers. You’ve got to learn the little tricks of these things behave.”

McLean is explaining — sort of, with a smile — why it took years for Magnolia’s Dogpatch project to open its doors, which it finally did this week; for more on the beer side of the operation, please do read Lessley Anderson’s awesome February piece on how Magnolia hopes that its new 30-barrel systems allows it to expand into new markets and packaged beer.

But once you see the space in full bloom, you start to understand why it took so long.

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Details are everywhere in the industrial space that clocks in at over 10,000 square feet, with Smokestack carved out of a fraction of that, its doors opening up to the corner of Third and 22nd. The bar and restaurant function as one, with no table service or reservations; just a collection of people floating, eating and drinking.

Kevin Landwehr of New York-based design firm Nothing Something led the full build-out, and it was an intricate process. It’s a thoughtful, direct counter to the generic bars that are popping up around town.

“It sounds a little hokey, but we tried to put ourselves in the shoes of the era of when this building was built, the 30s and 40s” says McLean. “We just went to the Dogpatch history, digging into what went on down here between the wars, when there was a lot of ship building and repair. That was the heyday of the Dogpatch.”

Landwehr and McLean took the blank canvas of the sprawling space and began to craft a story of what a blue-collar restaurant and bar in that era would be, and how it might evolve.

“It was almost like a director in a film would give a bit actor a big document of the back story of how that character came to be, even if the actor just had a 30-second part,” says McLean. “We kind of came up with our own little back story of how this all would come to be, and have basically been working off of that. It’s not a story we’d tell the public, or share that much, but to us, it’s the thing that makes it consistent and cohesive.”

Beer lines are hidden in “air ducts” winding across the towering ceiling. Some tables are made by a felled tree from the front of Magnolia’s Haight Street pub. Clear glass was distressed. Sections of wallpaper are incomplete, revealing old newspapers from the 30s, because at that time, people glued newspaper to the walls prior to the wallpaper to ensure better adhesion. Even the wooden floor was completed and then sections were torn out and patched up to make it feel like a place that has been there for decades, not one fabricated out of the concrete box that was there a few years ago.

“It’s been a design and art project as much as it has been building a restaurant, and I feel like that’s going to serve us well,” says McLean. “It’s just been a lot of fun to take a germ of an idea, a little bit of a story, and build it out.”

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But what about the food and drink, you ask?

The food at Smokestack is “non-denominational” barbecue, and it comes courtesy of Namu Gaji chef-owner Dennis Lee. The menu is scrawled on a chalkboard in the middle of the room, and it will change frequently, even hourly. Meats are sold by the pound, and earlier this week, options included smoked duck ($32/pound), Carolina-style chopped pork ($19/pound), chili cheddar pork sausage ($18/pound), 30-day-aged prime rib ($52/pound), and the winner of the night, a delightful and haunting Wagyu brisket, ($28/pound) done in a classic Texas style. Sides included a vinegar-laced red cabbage slaw ($3/$5), grilled cauliflower ($5/$9), macaroni salad ($4/$6), and various pickles.

[Sidenote: For three people, we paid about $55 total for four meats and all the sides. It was more than enough food.]

Diners order their meats at the right side of the counter, where helpful staffers guide you on your ordering strategy. Then you shuffle on over to the left side of counter to pay, past the hot meats, the chopping station, and the cold sides.

Farms are listed on the aforementioned chalkboard menu, and that was a conscious decision, says McLean: “One of the ideas here was to take the Magnolia sourcing philosophy and apply it to barbecue. That’s part of what attracted Dennis to the project.”

For example, the pigs they’re using are from Devil’s Gulch Ranch, where Mark Pasternak feeds the pigs the very same used grain that leaves Magnolia’s brewery (along with Straus organic milk and Petaluma tortillas). Grain leaves the brewery, and pigs come back. It’s a closed circle.

Speaking of the beer, the bar opened with all 20 taps pouring Magnolia beer, plus a trio of cask-conditioned Magnolia beers. Eventually, some of the more esoteric , limited edition Magnolia beers — like perhaps Smokestack Lightning Imperial Stout, Old Thunderpussy Barleywine, and Out with the Old Ale, aged in a bourbon barrel — will get swapped out for some guest beers. Do note there’s also an impressive lineup of American whiskeys.

Hours of operation at this point: Open at 4pm daily, with food service until 12am. The bar stays open until 2am, Wednesday through Saturday. Lunch service will start in the coming weeks.

For your further viewing enjoyment, here some Instagram snapshots from the first week of business at Smokestack: